The Good Story

A number of times on this blog, I’ve spoken about the Story, the mental and emotional play we engage that creates and supports the life we live. For many people, the idea that their lives are just a story may irritate. We have, after all, spent our life invested in it. More so, many of us have invested thousands of years into it.

But key in the waking process is giving up this story of separation and drama. First step is seeing the story in action. Seeing the way we react automatically to circumstances, sometimes distorting them to fit our conditioning and beliefs.

As we step more deeply into who we are, our ability to see the story deepens. First, we realize after the fact what has happened. Then we begin to see this reaction-response while it happens. More deeply, we can see it as arises, before we act. We begin to be able to choose. And finally, the power drains out of the story and the drama ends. Responses continue, but now driven by our depths rather than surface reactivity.

Some of this is cleared by our transcendence into source. But the more activated stuff, the sprouted seeds, are often laid in the sub-conscious habit mind so they are not seen until there is a trigger.

Complicating the issue, the ego sees the reactions arise and automatically makes them wrong. “I shouldn’t have done that”,”That was inappropriate”, and so forth. This has the effect of not allowing the submerged reactor to be fully seen and released. It is instead resisted, renewing it’s cycle of pain. We have created a story about a story, layering it in.

In effect, the ego takes this idea of ending the story and turns it into an enemy to be destroyed, in denial that the ego itself is the core story of separation. You can see the built in conflict and loop that takes place.

This is the subtle difference between simple seeing and judgment. For the more deeply entwined stories, it will of course need to come around a few times before it is seen fully enough.

As we deepen our connection to source, we will be less and less “caught” by the drama and will more easily clear more and more deeply.

Some suggest we should work to create a better story than the one we have. There can be some benefit to this if we find part of our story does not serve us well, like a belief in lack. But if our goal is to overcome the falsehood of separation, we’ll find much of the other drama will fall by the wayside in the process. And the most direct route to that is in connecting with the truth of who we are.

We will find that as long as we live our life, there will be a story at play. This is an expression of our purpose. This is our Living Story. It is only that the story does not have to be one of pain and suffering. When we discover who we are, it will become a story of love and bliss.

All of this arose after reading a quote from Gangaji in a recent newsletter:

“The story is not the enemy. The story is an ally.
It is a signal to look deeper.”

“As human beings we love stories. We communicate with stories. We pass on our teachings with stories. Stories are deeply valuable to us. But until we are willing to disengage from our stories, at least briefly, we are actually tyrannized by them.

That is the problem. If you are willing to dis-identify with your story for a minute, or an hour, or an afternoon, then there is the recognition that you exist without your story. That is freedom. You recognize yourself as the source of the story. You don’t need your story to be better or different. Then stories are just phenomena that appear and disappear. They are part of the enjoyment of being a human being, a conscious life form.”